DANA POINT, California (LifeSiteNews) – In what might signal a change in direction for the embattled party apparatus, the Republican National Committee has adopted a resolution urging Republican candidates to “go on offense” on abortion in the run-up to the 2024 elections.
The resolution reminds readers that the right to life is one of America’s foundational principles, that the Republican Party was founded in part to oppose the premiere denial of that right of the era, slavery, and that “protection for the right to life of unborn children” is one of the core planks of the party’s platform.
“The Republican National Committee urges all Republican pro-life candidates, consultants, and other national Republican Political Action Committees to remember this proud heritage, go on offense in the 2024 election cycle, and expose the Democrats’ extreme position of supporting abortion on-demand up until the moment of birth, paid for by the taxpayers, even supporting discriminatory abortions such as gender selection or when the child has been diagnosed with Down syndrome,” the resolution declares.
“The Republican National Committee urges Republican lawmakers in state legislatures and in Congress to pass the strongest pro-life legislation possible – such as laws that acknowledge the beating hearts and experiences of pain in the unborn – underscoring the new relics of barbarism the Democratic Party represents as we approach the 2024 cycle,” it adds.
The document is a repudiation of calls to deemphasize or downplay abortion in the wake of the 2022 midterm elections, with many including former President Donald Trump and Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) blaming perceived Republican extremism for the party’s failure to retake the Senate. The midterms were the first major elections to occur after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, allowing direct abortion bans to take effect for the first time in half a century and supercharging concern on both sides of the issue.
The resolution also directly addresses such claims, arguing that “instead of fighting back and exposing Democratic extremism on abortion, many Republican candidates failed to remind Americans of our proud heritage of challenging slavery, segregation, and the forces eroding the family and the sanctity of human life, thereby allowing Democrats to define our longtime position,” the resolution states.”
Evidence suggests that while abortion may have been a marginal boon to Democrat voter turnout, it was neither a major nor insurmountable factor in the midterms. Exit polls vary significantly in how much voters prioritized the issue; five abortion-related ballot initiatives all resulted in pro-abortion outcomes, but most incumbents won re-election regardless of party, and no state that enacted a near-total abortion ban ousted the governor or legislature responsible.
Other factors to which the midterms results have been attributed include Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell withdrawing financial support for certain candidates; Trump redirecting candidate donations to his own organization and his elevation of questionable candidates in GOP primaries; Democrats themselves funding weaker Republicans in primaries; potential election fraud and Democrats’ effective harvesting of early votes and mail ballots; manipulation of swing voters by Big Tech; establishment Republicans failing to offer a compelling contrast to Democrats over the last two years; and the long-term results of left-wing bias in media and education.
It remains to be seen whether the resolution reflects a deeper change in direction for the RNC, whose chair Ronna Romney McDainel recently won reelection despite facing widespread lack of trust and confidence from conservatives.